New Hampshire primary 2024: Trump projected to win, Haley vows to fight on
Trump and Biden had strong showings in the first-in-the-nation primary.
Former President Donald Trump will win the 2024 New Hampshire GOP primary, ABC News projects. As of 10 p.m. Eastern, Trump was ahead by less than 10 percentage points. While that represents a slight overperformance of polling for former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, even a close loss is a big hit to her prospects, as she had staked her campaign on a strong performance in the Granite State. Haley spoke shortly after the projection to emphasize that "this race is far from over," while Trump (and his allies) amped up calls for her to drop out.
ABC News has also projected that President Joe Biden will win the Granite State's Democratic primary. A comfortable write-in victory for him despite not even being on the ballot is a good sign for the incumbent.
Latest headlines:
How many Democratic write-ins are for Biden?
This is just one town, but in Belmont, Biden won about three-fourths of the write-in votes.
—Nathaniel Rakich, 538
Lebanon goes for Haley, but not overwhelmingly
Lebanon, New Hampshire, is a town with many college graduates on the Connecticut River just south of Hanover. Haley has 62 percent of the vote their. However, Trump grew his vote share there, too — from 22 percent to in 2016 to 37 percent today.
— Dan Hopkins, 538 contributor
Haley probably running behind where she needs to be
The capital city of Concord has just about fully reported now, based on data from ABC News. With 95 percent of the expected vote reported, Haley leads there by 8 points, 54 percent to 46 percent. That sounds great for her, but this is probably short of where she needs to be. Concord is a solid Democratic-leaning place — Biden won it by about 32 points in 2020 — so the registered independents here might be more favorable to her. But in the 2016 GOP primary, Trump, Ted Cruz and Ben Carson combined for 41 percent in Concord, yet Trump has 46 percent right now. To have any chance, Haley probably needs places like this to be even more robust for her.
—Geoffrey Skelley, 538
Welcome to 538's New Hampshire primary live blog!
It's been only eight days since Iowa's first-in-the-nation caucuses last Monday, but a lot has happened since then. On the night of the caucuses, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy dropped out of the race and endorsed former President Donald Trump, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis followed suit on Sunday. With former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson also leaving the race last week, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley is Trump's last major competitor standing.
And everyone has their eyes on New Hampshire as potentially the only state where Trump has a realistic chance of losing. Haley has invested heavily in New Hampshire and has been suggesting since early December that today's race would be the start of a competitive two-person primary between her and Trump. She's got her two-person race, but whether it will be remotely competitive remains to be seen. Trump has only continued to consolidate party support since his Iowa victory, and anything less than a convincing win for him would be surprising.
So when might we know? First polls will close tonight at 7 p.m. Eastern, and last polls will close at 8 p.m., which is the earliest time we could have a race projection. But as we did last week (when Trump's victory was projected only 30 minutes after caucuses had begun), we will of course be sticking around no matter what happens to see how each candidate does across the state and discuss what it could mean for the rest of 2024.
And that's not all! Granite State Democrats also have a primary today, and it's a weird one — New Hampshire is violating Democratic primary calendar rules by holding it so early. As a result, President Joe Biden isn't campaigning or even on the ballot, but his competitors, Rep. Dean Phillips and self-help author Marianne Williamson, are. While Biden isn't expected to face serious competition for the actual nomination, his margin of victory today as a write-in candidate could be one early sign of Democrats' grassroots enthusiasm for the incumbent.
Bookmark this page for updates and analysis throughout the night!
—Tia Yang, 538